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He held himself with stout dignity. “Nevertheless. I failed to serve you properly. We have many villages along the way to the Glass Mountains. I will see to your comfort and protection.”
“All right then.”
“I’ll arrange for horses immediately.” He hesitated.
“Spit it out, Larch.”
“It might be best if you ride instead of taking the coach. It won’t do well once you reach the mountains.”
“Makes sense to me. Blackbird—why don’t you take the coach to the Port of Blue Mermaids?”
She sighed. “Fine. But I don’t like this.”
“I’ll take care of Starling—I won’t risk her.”
“I’ll take care of myself, thank you! I’m not a doddering idiot.”
“No.” Blackbird smiled sadly and brushed Starling’s hair out of her eyes. “I can’t help but worry for you. I can’t lose you—” her voice caught, “—also.”
Starling’s brown eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t think of that. I’m sorry. I’ll go with you.”
Blackbird shook her head briskly and wiped away a tear of her own. “That’s not what I meant you to feel. You’re right. Your place is with Gwynn. Just…be careful, would you?”
With a little hiccup, Starling flung herself into Blackbird’s embrace, her golden hair a contrast to her mother’s gleaming brunette, and her frame more humanly proportioned than Blackbird’s longer limbs. Otherwise, they looked much the same, clearly sprung from the same seed. Athena toyed with the hilt of her dagger and caught me watching her. She gave me a little grimace for her fascination and busied herself lacing on her boots.
We decided to start walking while Blackbird waited for Larch to return with horses. He promised to catch up with us that evening. Or, barring that, the next day. She promised she’d be fine with her rapier and, besides, who would bother with her?
The four of us—including Darling Hercules—set off down the road Larch indicated. Athena promised that she knew the way also, with that enviable dragonfly girl hive-mind knowledge. I did feel keenly for Starling, that her mixed blood cut her out of that loop. I was foreign through and through, while she was cut out of a world that should have been hers.
As promised, Larch caught up with us by evening, bringing horses—including Felicity, who nickered at the sight of me—and a sack of tribute to trade. He wanted to trust Athena with that, as she would know the appropriate value of the things, but Starling thought Athena shouldn’t have both the staff and the tribute items while Athena astutely pointed out that Starling had custody of the grimoire. Eventually they decided to trade the staff back and forth.
The one thing they agreed on was that I shouldn’t touch it more than necessary.
I overruled them from time to time, however, ostensibly to practice with the staff. I grew my hair out permanently, just to prove I could, set the color and then left it alone. I stabilized a few other small spells. The staff didn’t have the reach or resonance of the cave itself, but it amplified very nicely.
Taking a bite out of me every time. Little bleeding wounds I took care to hide from the others. Though Darling seemed to know, watching me with his inscrutable cat’s eyes, thoughts quiet.
When I had enough energy, I checked the globe for Rogue’s activities. Which were more of the same. Dancing, feasting, lolling about, fawning over Titania. Though I hadn’t seen it directly—thank all the stars in the heavens—he seemed to be her lover. And utterly delighted with her.
Every night, I dreamed. Sometimes of the tender, ardent Rogue who visited me in bed and begged me not to look for him, even as he touched me like a starving man. Other times the bad dreams took over—me climbing up the glittering shards of the peaks, slicing my hands open.
I would have taken the lily earrings off, if I could have, just to stop the dreams. If I’d had the dragon’s egg still, I would have. Several times I toyed with the vial of dragon’s blood always in my pocket, considering if just a dab would do the trick. Always, though, I reconsidered. One doesn’t squander a secret weapon on the way to the great confrontation.
The dreams—the good ones—were also the only source of anything remotely sexually interesting in my life. We rode all day, shoveled food into our mouths at night and fell into our beds, when we had them, dead to the world. If we slept outside, though we had blankets supplied by nearby Brownie villages, I invoked the force field. The Wild Hunt grew louder every night, so much so that I sometimes feared the pounding hooves would crash through the roof of whatever house we slept in. Though the others didn’t seem to notice it as much, I didn’t care to take any risks that the hunt might carry one of us away.
Otherwise, I grew parsimonious with my magic use. With every day that passed, I became aware that my reserves dwindled a bit more. Without Rogue’s teasing and titillating presence, there was nothing to replenish me. Not even a convenient Officer Liam to charge my girly batteries. He was apparently trying to catch up with us, but wouldn’t for some time, limited to nonmagical travel.
Not an ideal way to confront one’s greatest enemy.
Finally, when Larch next made contact, I asked him to arrange for us to stay in a human village for the night. He gave me a dubiously blue look.
“Surely you can’t be worried I intend to betray Rogue,” I snapped at him, irritable. “Look what I’m already going through for his sake. This is something I need to do. Just trust me in this.”
He slid his gaze off mine and on to Athena. “You’ll have to play dumb,” he told her. “The humans will expect it.”
She widened her lilac eyes and rounded her little pink bow of a mouth, then giggled. Starling snorted and Larch just shook his head.
“Just set it up, Larch, please? We can handle ourselves.”
